Michael Sarver

Talk about a spoiler alert: The “American Idol” Top 13 competition just got under way on Tuesday, and we still have 10 weeks to go, and loopy Paula Abdul is already sending Danny Gokey and Adam Lambert into the finals. OK, we can all stop watching …

Actually, six or seven singers distinguished themselves while delving into the glorious Michael Jackson songbook. So contrary to what Paula is spewing, it’s looking to be a pretty competitive field.

It was also Night 1 for our “American Idol” Readers Judges Panel — a group of passionate (and opinionated) Bay Area fans who will be critiquing the performances for us from here on out. But don’t let them have the last word! Feel free to agree or disagree with them and add your two cents to the discussion. What did YOU think of the performances?

This just in: Believe it or not, “American Idol” simply has TOO much talent this season. Too much talent to squeeze into a measely Top 12. And so we now have a Top 13!

Somehow, that just doesn’t sound right. But 13 it is because those indecisive judges got tired of dropping the hammer last night and allowed four wild cards to advance, instead of the expected three.

That was good news for Jasmine Murray, Megan Joy Corkrey, Matt Giraud and Anoop Desai, all of whom will be back for next Tuesday’s showdown. The judges said the choice between Giraud and Desai was so difficult that they just went with both.

We have our first three singers in the “American Idol” Top 12 and at least two of them pretty much followed form.

Alexis Grace and Danny Gokey both received enough votes to advance — as we expected. But our other pick — Anoop Desai — lost out to oil-rig roughneck Michael Sarver in a very close call. Anoop still has a chance to make it back into the competition when the wild-card round is held three weeks from now.